When He Calls Us Upon The Water
It's funny because we go to church or we sing these songs in the shower and belt out in full belief and conviction and with all our might lines in songs like Oceans that say,
You call me out upon the waters The great unknown where feet may fail And there I find You in the mystery In oceans deep My faith will stand
And I will call upon Your name And keep my eyes above the waves When oceans rise My soul will rest in Your embrace For I am Yours and You are mine
I say this is funny because sometimes as followers of Christ we do this thing where we tell ourselves that we're going to call out to God and we say we will trust Him and rest in His embrace...
Until He calls us out upon the water.
When life is going good for us and we have the things we desire, we have no problem running after God. In these moments where a clear path is laid before us, we stand firm in our faith and walk boldly in the name of Jesus Christ. But what happens when He calls us out upon the waters? What happens when God calls us to do something that makes absolutely no sense, or calls us away from something that seems impossible to pull away from? What happens when God asks you to do something or to have faith in something that you cannot to begin to comprehend? Or even worse, what happens when God gives you the greatest desires of your heart only to later ask you to step away from it?
In Matthew 14 the Bible reads,
27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”
29 “Come,” he said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”
31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
32 And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
As humans we have this fleshly desire to take control, we have this need to have a plan for our lives. We spend so much time figuring out what comes next and how to get from one step to the other that even when we are seeking to run after God's plan, we start to place our comfort and our security and our hope in our plans rather than our God. When we give satan this foothold in our lives, we give him the opportunity to shift our eyes off of Jesus and to place our hope and love and trust into someone or something that does not have the capability or capacity to nurture those feelings or provide that security other than God. We become so attached and start to rely on something so much that we start to believe satan's lies that we need that person, we need that job, we need that desire, we need that dream, we need that attention, we need that award, we need that hobby, we need that success, we need whatever it is that we love and cling to it. Because it's not comfortable to be without it and because we've become so attached, we refuse to go down a different path.
Now, let me ask this...
When God asked Peter to come out onto the water, do you think anyone had ever walked on water before? Do you think Peter felt secure and good about the water holding him up in the air? No! Like the verse said, Peter began to doubt. He took his eyes off of God and began to rely on the boat for his security rather than His faith in Jesus and he started to drown! We do the same thing. When God puts us on a path that is uncomfortable, that isn't what we desire, it is so easy to take our eyes off of Jesus and begin to doubt. We begin to doubt that He can hold us above the waves, we begin to doubt that the place He is calling us to is actually the best thing for us. We fight Him and we no longer want to be called upon the waters, we no longer want to follow God if it means giving up the things we love, we no longer want Jesus if it means that we have to walk through a period of suffering or to be in a place that we don't want to be.
That's such a common fear among Christians, fear of the unknown. Such a fear of going through periods of uncertainty. Such a fear of having no control over the situation, such a fear of not knowing what God is doing or what the future holds. But hold up a second..
As followers of Jesus Christ, are we a people full of fear?
NO. Absolutely not! We are called into the exact opposite. Isaiah 41:10 says this,
"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."
In Jesus Christ we are victorious! By the name of Jesus every knee on earth and above and below MUST bow down. In Jesus Christ we can do all things, fight all things, and fear no things because we are consistently strengthened and supported by our incredible Savior who fights for us and goes before us in all that we do. When Jesus asks us to give up something that we love, something that we don't want to live without, something that is painful to walk away from, it is time that we stop doubting and start trusting.
Trusting that God's promises are true and that He WILL take care of you. Trusting that He has a plan much greater than anything we could ever imagine. Jesus Christ has such mighty and powerful plans for each and everyone one of us.. Why would we ever settle for less?
One of the side notes in my bible reads this:
No matter what this world throws at you, you can find a deep peace in knowing that God's will is the perfect will and that he never lets anything happen unless it will bring Him glory. When His glory is your number one goal, you know you have nothing to fear when trials hit. When you courageously look suffering in the eyes and say, "God's will be done," your faith will be a rock to stand on and you will find relief where others can only find agony."
Choose God. Choose that no matter how big the waves may be, no matter how much He is asking you to give away that you will keep your eyes above the waves and choose to walk on the water. It might not be the easy road, often times it's in fact the hard road and sometimes even the lonely one. But as followers of Christ we need to stand firm in the fact that God saves His toughest battle for His strongest soldiers. His interest is not to please you but to sharpen you. To push you to be the absolute best you can be and to provide you with the greatest life that you would ever imagine.
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During the joy, during the happiest moments of your life we can look up and say thank you. We can raise our hands high and smile knowing that God is so sovereign. When things are the way we want them we always praise Him, we always give Him thanks and let Him know that we are grateful. It is so easy to love God and His plans when they are going accordingly…. It is so easy to tell others it is all in His hands during a time when you feel victory.
But looking around, it's easy to see that this world is filled with anxiety and worry…especially when it comes to the “what is next” question. What does He have for me? One day we wake up and feel like God has pushed us to something that will have incredible meaning in our lives, and the next we turn around and it feels like He has something else completely different for us. What does that mean? How do we listen? Why does He do this?
God says he uses His good and faithful servants. (Matthew 5:23) He uses those who follow him to be used to their fullest extent, He pushes those who walk with Him daily to the ends and to depths of water to the point that sometimes we feel like we can't breathe. It's not uncommon that He allows us to feel like there is nothing else left to cling on to so that at the end of the day it's His glory that shines through the depth of that water and becomes the very breath that we have been gasping for. Now I won't lie to you, it's hard to listen to God. It is hard to look to Him and say, "Lord, take me, help me surrender to you in all that I do and in all that I love." But there is a reason that He brings his most faithful servants through times of suffering because it is refining and restoring them through the blood of Jesus Christ to be made new and to be made as white as snow.
What is the purpose and the reason for the things happening in our life? Lord please tell me why this is happening? Give me the answer Lord. The amount of times I have prayed for the Lord to show his reasoning is unreal… the fact that I have to ask for reasoning is meaning enough to Let Go and Let God. It's time to let go of those questions that consume your mind, let go of all the stress coming from the decision you have to make, let go of why you feel that He is taking away the things that you love because God ultimate purpose is so sovereign.
If everything I prayed for was given unto me, I would be so lost in this life. So why do I then still have such a problem letting God take the wheel, sitting in the passenger seat and just breathing, during certain seasons of my life? He tells us in Proverbs 19:20 “Many are the plans of a persons heart, but it is the Lords purpose that prevails.” He lays out for us, plain and simple, that it is completely in His hands. He takes his most faithful servants, lets them fall and be pushed to end meets, so that they cling to Him gasping for the breath that only he can give to them to show that He brings life to all things and that being a Christian in this broken world sometimes means falling and being picked up by our heavenly father, which should be seen as a gift with promise and restoration rather than defeat and bitterness. This life is filled with so many questions that only the Lord knows the answer to and that by giving our life to Christ Jesus we should know that all of our "Why"and "What" questions have already been answered and that questioning the mighty power of our Lord and Savior is only hurting yourself. As It says in Proverbs 25:2 “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter...” and for God to conceal a matter it means that: God gets the glory because humans cannot fully understand his universe or the way he rules it.” God made this world a puzzle, a puzzle that never has an end and an edge, one that continues to get larger and larger and one that we cant ever put together because He is the only one that has the Power to complete the ever taunting pieces. Why is it so easy to praise God when we feel like everything is right and why is it so hard to praise Him when things aren’t going the way we want them to? Questioning God is questioning His power, and questioning his power is a revelation of our faith. When we go through heartache and confusion we should thank the Lord that we have been placed in a position for him to ultimately restore us to be able to speak among the nations for more to bring glory to God, then we have reached our purpose. Everyone wishes to know their purpose or the purpose of the situation they are in, yet in all reality those many different paths we are all on meet in one central area. We all meet upon the water where we have to reach up to God, breathe the God breathed air, and turn to others to help them among their fight to listen to Gods will and to continue the process to praise him in every trial or joyful season of our lives. Help me to breath just sit down and breathe.
Claire Holcomb
Following God out upon the waters is not easy. A lot of times it's very hard and a lot of times it comes with a period of the unknown but thats ok because we know God. And we know that His promises are true and that He is faithful and He is sovereign. I know how hard it is to see the light at the end of the tunnel in the midst of a trial. But think about Mary for a second. Think about her sitting and watching her son brutally die on the cross. Could she have ever been able to understand what would happen next? Would she ever have been able to guess that something so hard and so terrible would lead to the ultimate freedom and be the ultimate sacrifice for anyone and everyone on earth?
God's plan is perfect in every way.
And it is way better than the one that we have for ourselves. We just have to cling to Him, stay focused on Him, and walk on the water.
We are going to face times where all hope looks lost and that following God rather than your feelings seems impossible.. but it's time that we take our eyes off of what it is that we've lost and to move forward by trusting in the God who has not, and will not ever let us down. You have no idea what your pain or sacrifice or obedience might give way to. But what you can know is that something incredible is coming around the corner when you put your faith in an unshakable God, our God who never fails.
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Claire and I wanted to leave those of you who are in a period of being called out upon the water with a prayer. I hope that it will help you as much as it has helped us.
Lord consume this mind, this heart, this body, my every waking breath. Point me to the people, the words, the study, and the path of righteousness. Make me a walking image of you and make me a light unto your path. Show me who you want me to be and fill my cup up with you and not of this world. Not friends, not relationships, not activities, not the approval of others, not anything else but you, Jesus. Fix my eyes on you so that you can deliver me in a way that I may be proud of and to serve others and to help them find favor in your eyes. Bring the words to my mouth when people come to me and let each of their words sink into my very soul and spirit to help change me and transform me into the person that you've created me to be. Show me where I am supposed to go and open the ears of my Spirit to everything that you have planned for my life. Cover me in patience and trust so that I may walk out the perfect plans that you have created for your Glory. In the precious name of Jesus I pray, amen.
